Dubbo is NSW most affordable town

[Canteen Worker]

Article from: The Daily Telegraph

 
By Holly Ife

January 20, 2009 12:00am

SYDNEY might be Australia's most expensive city but beyond the gridlock and urban sprawl are the most affordable towns in the country.

Regional NSW is home to five of the top 10 most affordable towns to live, according to new figures released.

Dubbo in the state's Central West is NSW's most affordable town, followed by Tamworth, Taree, Wagga Wagga and Albury-Wodonga in the Residential Development Council/RP Data statistics.

Filling out the top 10 affordable towns were Victorian country towns in The Latrobe Valley, Mildura, Ballarat, Bendigo and Shepparton.

The research compared the average household income for each state with the median house price for different regions, and calculated the percentage of income that would be spent on mortgage repayments.

It named the Gold Coast, Sydney, Sunshine Coast, Perth, Ballina, Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne, Mandurah and Mackay as the least affordable markets.

The data showed 93 per cent of the average Queensland household income would be needed to meet a mortgage repayment on a median-price Gold Coast property - once considered an affordable area.

But Caryn Kakas, executive director of the Residential Development Council, said even the most affordable properties were putting families under stress.

"The general rule of thumb is that spending anything above 30 per cent of your income on mortgage repayments or rent is classified as housing stress," Ms Kakas said.

Every one of the top 10 urban centres on the most affordable list (houses), with the exception of the Latrobe Valley, required more than 30 per cent of the average household income to meet repayments.

It was a different situation in the rental market, with the Latrobe Valley, Ballarat, Mildura, Great Taree (NSW) and Dubbo (NSW) named as the cheapest places to rent a house - all requiring less than than 22 per cent of the average household income in rent.

 

[Fro]

I'll just let that one go through to the keeper.

It's way too easy

 

[Guest]

No guesses why.

 

[Matabele]

Little wonder when our incompetent bloody Council have just run 3 of our best doctors out of town and into the open arms of Shellharbour. 

 

[Fro]

With you there Matas, no country towns can afford to get rid of any health services, especially from what I was led to believe was just a planning issue.

 

[Matabele]

With you there Matas, no country towns can afford to get rid of any health services, especially from what I was led to believe was just a planning issue.

Dubbo's town planning department approach everything from the perspective of "it can;t be done unless proven otherwise".  Thus we lack for a huge range of commercial enterprise enjoyed by Orange and Bafurst.

 

[Canteen Worker]

I note in the TV guide that there is a documentary being telecast this Thursday night, on the troubles in Gordon Estate in Dubbo, and the problems that exist with aboriginal youth.

 

[Matabele]

I note in the TV guide that there is a documentary being telecast this Thursday night, on the troubles in Gordon Estate in Dubbo, and the problems that exist with aboriginal youth.

  Yeah, we're braced for a slagging.  The politicians here think displacing everyone has been the best thing done in years.  It may have cleaned up the "slum" but it has just displaced the problem all around the rest of the State.

 

[Dan]

How anyone can live that far from the ocean is beyond me. I felt land locked when I was living at Artarmon, in Sydney.

 

[Matabele]

How anyone can live that far from the ocean is beyond me. I felt land locked when I was living at Artarmon, in Sydney.

Tell me about it.

 

[ERNIE FOR NO7]

Dubbo most affordable  hey,  But who want to buy it?

 

[Matabele]

All the local politicians and paper bleating about the documentary.  Perhaps they should stop to ask themselves how they'd feel if they were thrown out of their hearth and home and forced to watch it get bulldozed?  I thought that sort of thing only happens in Zimbabwe!

 

[ManlyBacker]

I thought the show was one-sided and sponsored by all the usual well-meaning film funding authorities. There was not one comment from outside.

I just can't feel sorry for two single mum sisters with 15 kids between them (and just how huge would that welfare payment be?) who have a government provided home and couldn't give a stuff about looking after it.

Then there was the most articulate one of all those interviewed and he is still harking on about something that may or may not have had an effect on schoolkids 35 years ago. The problem mate is the kids today.

Go to the NT and you will see some aborigine communities are proud, clean and well organised and others are the absolute opposite. The difference is the positive attitude (or complete lack of it) from the elders in the community. No guesses where this mob thoughts lie - it is everyone else's fault except their own.

Some folks are going to get a bum steer almost every step in life's path and maybe all the aborigines in the Gordon Estate have had this happen to them. Somehow these folks need to pick themselves up, have some self-respect and start telling the kids to stop behaving like thugs.

Just my thoughts on what was a very quick show and of what I am sure is a complex issue.

 

[Matabele]

When Mugabe bulldozes houses for political expediency Australian Governments call him a despot.  When the State government bulldozes houses for political expediency it is lauded as progressive social policy.

Gordon Estate was originally created for political expediency, basically a ghetto to keep all the boongs on the other side of the river from the white folk.  1000 houses with no commercial precinct, no parks, no schools and no public transport.  What did they expect? 

Where there's no prospect of a job there's little else to do than to drink, fight and breed. 

I can assure you if a local gatekeeper had been asked they'd have prattled on about the reduction in crime rate.  But they wouldn't talk about the crime rate in East Dubbo, the bars going up on windows all over town and the angry white folk whispering about Black Ridge (formally the plush suburb Eastridge) over their gated BBQs.

 

[Canteen Worker]

Did you watch the programme Mata?

 

[ManlyBacker]

CW asks a good question. However I hear what you are saying Mata - there are always many sides.

 

[Matabele]

I set Fox IQ to record the program but it didn't record, so no I haven't seen it in full.  I've talked about it quite a bit with people here who did see it.

However, I'd venture to suggest I've had far more to do with the Gordon Estate residents over the previous few years than the documentary makers.  and as Senior Vice President of the local Chamber of commerce and Industry I know what the position of the so-called elite (aka priviledged) in town is.

Some further interesting asides - with Dodson calling for Australia Day to be moved away from "Invasion Day".  We went to the local pool complex for the Australia Day celebrations today and my wife made comment that the crowd there was probably 50% indigenous, against their proportion in the city population of 10%. 

It appears the repulsion of Invasion Day doesn't extend beyond free entry into the pool that saves $3?

And in a town that does certainly have some significant racial tensions, perhaps the city is seen at it's best on the sports fields. The touch football competition here is thoroughly egalitarian with a strong indigenous participation and also a lot of them involved in officialdom and volunteer capacities.  Sport has a certain power to transcend barriers I believe. 

 

[Canteen Worker]

I grew up in the bush and had many mates that today would be called indigenous but neither I or they really noticed it, as our main interest was sport. Funnily enough the professional spokespeople did not really speak for them or their views.

As for the doc, it was rather disappointing!!!

 

[Fluffy]

Little wonder when our incompetent bloody Council have just run 3 of our best doctors out of town and into the open arms of Shellharbour. 

Mata,

can i say you can thank yourselves lucky in one way. On the council here where Hopium is deputy Mayor there is one nutter who in a nutshell is trying to kill the entire operations. In DA meetings he defers everything he can in order to give his number 2 (the councilor appears illiterate) time to go over the material and see if it has anything to do with the state member (whom used to be mayor 8+ years ago). Today he had (like usual) his sandwich board over him slandering the state member and failed to sing one word of the national anthem. 2 weeks ago he sent out a sh*t sheet insinuating Hopium is gay (facebook page stating she is interested in men and women, for friendship and engaged to fluffy). Since September there has been 500+ notices of motion, most relating to stuff that happened pre 2000. The other 6 councilors in total wouldnt have tabled 50.

Unfortunatly he has dirt on some of the other concilors and hence they tow his line.

What is worse is he wants to be mayor, if this happens that is the end of council

So in summary, be thankful this is occuring in a small Sydney based council where things arnt already on the limitis because if he was out at Dubbo you would have moved by now.

 

[Matabele]

[quote author=Matabele link=topic=179055.msg205555#msg205555 date=1232511156]
Little wonder when our incompetent bloody Council have just run 3 of our best doctors out of town and into the open arms of Shellharbour. 

Mata,

can i say you can thank yourselves lucky in one way. On the council here where Hopium is deputy Mayor there is one nutter who in a nutshell is trying to kill the entire operations. In DA meetings he defers everything he can in order to give his number 2 (the councilor appears illiterate) time to go over the material and see if it has anything to do with the state member (whom used to be mayor 8+ years ago). Today he had (like usual) his sandwich board over him slandering the state member and failed to sing one word of the national anthem. 2 weeks ago he sent out a sh*t sheet insinuating Hopium is gay (facebook page stating she is interested in men and women, for friendship and engaged to fluffy). Since September there has been 500+ notices of motion, most relating to stuff that happened pre 2000. The other 6 councilors in total wouldnt have tabled 50.

Unfortunatly he has dirt on some of the other concilors and hence they tow his line.

What is worse is he wants to be mayor, if this happens that is the end of council

So in summary, be thankful this is occuring in a small Sydney based council where things arnt already on the limitis because if he was out at Dubbo you would have moved by now.
[/quote]  If I were you I'd be giving Kate McClymont at the Herald a call .....